The article examines the effects of non-financial disclosure (NFD) on corporate social responsibility (CSR). We conceptualise trade-offs between two ideal types (government regulation and business self-regulation) in relation to CSR. Whereas self-regulation is associated with greater flexibility for businesses to develop best practices, it can also lead to complacency if firms feel no external pressure to engage with CSR. In contrast, government regulation is associated with greater stringency around minimum standards, but can also result in rigidity owing to a 'one size fits all' approach. Given these potential trade-offs, we ask how mandatory non-financial disclosure has been shaping CSR practices and examine its potential effectiveness as a regulatory instrument. Our analysis of 24 OECD countries using the Asset4 database shows that firms in countries that require non-financial disclosure adopt significantly more CSR activities. However, we also find that NFD regulation does not lead to lower levels of corporate irresponsibility. Furthermore, our analysis demonstrates that, over time, the variation in CSR activities declines as firms adopt increasingly similar practices. Our study thereby contributes to understanding the impact of government regulation on CSR at firm level. We also discuss the limits of mandatory NFD in addressing regulatory trade-offs between stringency and flexibility in the field of corporate social responsibility.
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Cross‐border acquisitions are growing in volume and global economic importance, yet a considerable number end in failure. Many of these failures may be linked to people management‐related issues. We extend this stream of research by investigating the impact of the acquirer's aggregate human resource management (HRM) quality on cross‐border acquisition divestment. Our empirical analysis uses a panel database of 4128 cross‐border acquisition/year observations and an event history design. The findings confirm a curvilinear relationship and suggest that acquisition failures are not merely associated with poor HRM quality, but also with very high levels of HRM quality, that is, with both extremes. Moreover, our results show that financial slack has a significant moderating effect on the curvilinear relationship between HRM quality and the likelihood of acquisition divestment. Overall, our study reveals boundary conditions for the widely demonstrated positive relationship between HRM quality and organizational performance in an acquisition context.
The heavy-handed regulation enforced a commercialization process and as a result pushed microfinance institutions towards a commercial logic. This commercial shift, in its turn, diminished the importance of the social component.
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